Oracle Blog

when you find the need to go beyond documentation..

Thursday Jan 17, 2008

According to this report, we recently announced the "Open Media Commons" initiative, aimed at creating an open-source, royalty-free digital-rights management standard. According to our COO, Jonathan Schwartz, the growing number of rival DRM standards that are incompatible with one another could stifle innovation and economic growth.

"It's an interesting idea," Gartner G2 analyst Mike McGuire said of Sun's effort. "But you've got a whole bunch of audiences that have to be satisfied with this."

Microsoft is pushing its Windows Media DRM, Sony has its own version, and Apple has its FairPlay DRM, which it has so far declined to license, which works with its iTunes and iPod products. In addition, cell-phone makers are already starting to sell phones that work as digital music players, and a consortium of carriers and handset makers known as the Open Media Alliance is developing its own DRM standard, OMA, for phones. There is also Coral, a group formed by more than 30 tech and media companies, including the four major record label companies to create DRM interoperability standards.